Getty Museum

Decorated Initial S

Date

late 15th or early 16th century

Medium

Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink

Culture

Italian

Department

Manuscripts

Institution

Getty Museum

The introit for Pentecost in this gradual opens with the words: *Spiritus domini replevit orbe[m] terraru[m]* (The spirit of the Lord filled the whole world). The decorated initial *S* is a flourish of classically inspired arabesques and horns. Mimicking the sense of the text, the *S* nearly fills the entire space relegated to it. The illuminator Antonio da Monza contained the exuberant curvilinear forms of the initial within an illusionistic frame that seems to project from the page. Da Monza drew on an antique visual vocabulary made popular by the recent discovery of the Golden House of Nero in Rome.

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